Carola Hoyos

Hurricane Rita has caused more damage to oil rigs than any other storm in history and will force companies to delay drilling for oil in the US and as far away as the Middle East, initial damage assessments show

International oil companies have advertising campaigns warning that the world is running out of oil and calling on the public to help the industry do something about it.
Most of the executives ofThe world’s five largest energy groups generally maintain that oil projects are viable with the price at which they test a project’s viability is within the around $20 a barrel. range. But their advertising and some of their companies’ own statistics appear to tell a different story.

… But private warnings also point to a worsening long-term outlook, with Saudi officials saying that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be unable to meet projected western demand in 10 to 15 years. …
Saudi Arabia pumps 9.5m b/d and has assured consumer countries that it could reach 12.5m b/d in 2009 and probably 15m b/d eventually. But a senior western energy official said: “They said it would be extremely difficult to move above that figure”.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank believe that, after 2008, almost half the opportunities for oil companies will be in LNG, GTL and the Venezuelan and Canadian oil sands, with deep water projects making up another quarter of the expected openings. But oil companies diverge on the need to get into such projects.

Some of the world’s biggest oil-producing countries have reduced their investment in new capacity despite record oil prices. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries this week revealed its members drilled 6.5 per cent fewer wells in 2003, suggesting the global supply crunch and high oil prices could last longer than expected, analysts said. The numbers appear to contradict statements by Opec members that they are actively building extra capacity.

Moscow’s decisions to strip the oil company Yukos of its biggest asset and to give initial blessing to ConocoPhillips of the US to broaden its investment in Russia have drastically altered the most important strategic playing field of the big international oil companies.